


Circumnavigate

by conceptofzero



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 16:44:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4632615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/conceptofzero/pseuds/conceptofzero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Furiosa and the other women run the Citadel, Max helps in his own particular way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Circumnavigate

**Author's Note:**

> For #18.

The tankers are chrome and shiny, glistening under the hot sun, and Furiosa can’t understand why they haven’t been attacked already. It’s only as they draw near to the Citadel’s gates that the winds bring in the smell of them and she understands in an instant why. They smell unbearably bad, foul in only the way that shit can be. 

They plug up their noses with scraps of cloth and go out to see what they want. The lead truck is driven by a woman with tattoos all over her face and a big booming voice. “You must be her then! Good, we were fearing we’d come this way for nothing. There’s four big loads for you and yours, in exchange for sheltering and mending.” 

Furiosa feels no fear as she approaches this woman. There’s rifles pointed at all this group but she knows they’re not here to hurt them. In the other trucks, she sees more women piling out, all tattooed as well. None are obviously pregnant, but Furiosa knows how little that means. 

“You’re welcome in, no payment necessary.” She’s firm about this. Furiosa isn’t charging anyone for safety, not if they need it. That doesn’t mean she won’t put it to good use. It’s just that she won’t be taking it for herself. “You know how to use it as fertilizer?” 

The big woman laughs and gives Furiosa an amused sorta look. “And bombs too, but your man said you’d be looking more for how to grow things.” 

Her man. Furiosa knows an an instant who this woman means. Max… He must have pointed these people in the Citadel’s direction. “Did he come with you?”

“A little ways, but he turned off before we got sight of this place.” The tattooed women stream by them, though a little one stops behind the big woman, hiding behind her like a child might. “Your scout?” 

“Not quite.” She could try explain Max, but… no, best not to. Instead, she offers her hand. That’s a better place to start. Later, she’ll explain, and she’ll find out more about what Max has been doing since he disappeared. There’s these people to get settled first and the tankers to be drained and settled where the wind won’t blow the stink right into the settlement. 

\--

The next people come from the east in a van that seems a few miles away from rattling itself into pieces. Inside is another gift - a doctor, a real one, not like the Organic Mechanic. With him are half a dozen silent young boys, each of them bearing scars over their throats. 

The Doc tells a story that is all too familiar to Furiosa by this point. To the east, there was another dictatorship with another tyrant, another bloated tick feeding off the pain and misery of those beneath them. All this is told with a halting voice, the Doc struggling to put words together after so long being silent. The little ones were all muted as soon as they were born, so they wouldn’t cry and bother their leader. 

By the end of the first week, Furiosa spots them running with the War Boys, making a great clattering sound with their fists and feet, taking to climbing the Citadel towers as if they had been born there. She wonders what Max made of them all, as silent as him but by force instead of choice. 

They’re a welcome addition, but it’s the doctor that means the most. Dag’s getting close to delivery and he’s got real experience at birthing. He says little as he checks her, but his nods and smiles make it clear that things will be fine. They’ve done their best with what they’ve read in books and from what the mothers remember of their own birthings, but it’s still good to have someone who knows how to stitch and how to watch for complications. 

In her quarters, Furiosa marks Max’s last known position on a map of the wastes. Where’s he headed next? 

\--

The people keep coming from all directions. 

From the south comes a mechanic with a strange pair of curved metal feet. She runs faster than most of the people in the Citadel and she takes Furiosa’s limb to make her own improvements on. The woman never speaks about the scar around her neck, the kind a collar might make if you wore it for years and years. 

An engineer arrives from the west soon after, traveling in a siege engine. The Citadel is preparing for war when they spot the white flag flying above the machine, tattered by still pristine. The machine is a mighty beast, the kind of thing perfect for breaking through the walls of a settlement, or for safe passage for those too weak to last on foot. 

In the middle of the night, a dozen pale people from the salt flats come, arriving silently at the gates of the Citadel and waiting there until Furiosa comes to speak to them. They call themselves Sirens and offer a trade: a new home in return for help defending it. 

Each of them has something to offer the Citadel. Each of them brings a story about Max. She plots out his movements on the map and as far as she can tell, he’s moving in circles, swinging around the Citadel again and again, each time sending more people and resources their way. Furiosa appreciates his help, but she can’t figure out why he won’t come see her himself. He’s welcome here, but each new group tells the same story - Max traveled with them until he could see the Citadel and then turn away into the wastes again. 

Furiosa wonders if she should send someone out to find him. It wouldn’t be so hard. But it feels wrong to drag him back if he doesn’t want to come. He knows where they are. He knows she’s still here. 

And as long as he keeps sending them people, she knows he still believes in the Citadel. 

\-- 

The Citadel is swelling with Max’s refugees. Capable calls them Max’s little gifts and the rest of the women are picking up on the words. Furiosa supposes it’s not the worst word for them, though she hates the way their eyes dart over to her after they say it. They think he’s sending these to her like a lover might send tokens. That’s what Cheedo seems to think, though she reads too much and Furiosa knows how much books can lie. 

Still, she’s not sure how else to take what Max is doing. It isn’t just refugees that he sends, or there would be far more of them. It seems he picks and chooses who to send, giving the Citadel what it needs most. Doctors, farmers, mechanics, smiths, tradespeople of all kinds, even those she didn’t know they would need. The supplies are always useful too, though sometimes it takes them a while to figure what he means for them to do with what he sends. Everyone comes with something to add to the Citadel, in exchange for safety for those who truly need it. He’s helping build their new green place into something strong, something that can protect itself from all the dangers the wastelands have the offer them. This new vision is as much his as it is hers and the other women’s.

But he still won’t come. 

The Dag has always been free with her words and she’s even freer now that there are no punishments to be had for sharing them. “All shlangers are the same. They haven’t got any brains upstairs. It’s all just instincts. He won’t come because he can’t think.”

It’s an uncharitable way of looking at Max and she’s fairly certain that the Dag’s wrong. Everything he’s sent was clearly thought through. If he’s guilty of anything, it’s of thinking too much of others and not of himself. It’s not easy out in the wastes and he’s been there for half a dozen waxing and wanings. 

“He’s courting you,” Cheedo says, books spread out all around her. She’s reading them and writing down what good information is in them, though sometimes she needs to be reminded that lovely phrases are not exactly necessary. At least she notes them on a separate sheet for those like her, the ones who might have the luxury to care in the future. She writes with charcoal, her fingers all blackened by it. “They’re little love gifts. He says everything with his deeds because he doesn’t trust words.” 

This isn’t right either, just as the Dag’s pronouncements weren’t right. These might be gifts, but they aren’t just for her. Max is smarter than that. He knows this place doesn’t live and die on her - it lives and dies on the people here, the women and the wretched and the chalk pups. They’re stronger for Max’s help. It’s just a shame he won’t come in and enjoy some of it himself. 

Toast doesn’t pass any judgements on what it is Max is meaning by this, but she does sometimes say “We could use a mason or a bricklayer or something like that” or “Do you think we could write him to send shells?”. She has always been practical and for that reason, Furiosa finds herself sometimes keeping company with Toast, appreciative that their conversations can be simple and direct. 

“You should ride out to meet him sometime,” she says, just the once, glancing sidelong at Furiosa, “You could ask him to send us some more of what we really need.” 

She says nothing to this, offering Toast a full box of shells before starting to fill another, and that’s the last that Toast brings it up. Toast is right, Furiosa could go out and ask him to bring them what they’re lacking. It wouldn’t be impossible to find him - just hard. She knows the direction he’s going in, and she’s learned to tell the times he tends to bring people to the Citadel. But she could be out there for days waiting for him, and that would be a waste when she could be here, helping to build and plan. 

That’s her plan, right until Capable comes to her one morning, carrying keys in her fist. She makes Furiosa take them in her flesh hand, not letting her brush them aside. “Go speak with him. We can get by without you for a while.” 

There’s excuses on her tongue, good ones, real ones, but Capable has a fierce look on her face. She’s kept positive since their return but Fury Road changed her deeply. Nux lived and died for her, and she carries that with her, not as a heavy weight upon her but with gentle care as if she worries she might one day lose it. 

“Go.” Capable repeats. 

Furiosa finally goes. 

\--

She crosses paths with him on her fifth day. Furiosa spots the far off sign of dust and heads for it. She missed driving more than she guessed she would, and now that she drives for pleasure alone, she finds that she loves every rattle and shaking of the car. There’s no motor oil smeared on her head and she feels somewhat bare without it.

As she gets close, she knows it must be Max. That’s his car pulled ahead of whatever convoy he’s leading, coming straight for her. She comes to a stop and waits for the dust to settle so he can see it’s one of the Citadel’s vehicles. They’ve sent her forth in one of the water carriers, though they’ve only half-filled it to make it easier to move. It’s harmless looking and makes a sloshing sound whenever she stops, the waters in the container out back rolling back and forth until they finally settle.

Once Max realizes it’s no enemy, his car slows as well. She wonders if he’ll come near or not. Perhaps he’ll bolt back into the wastes, let her guide home the newest gifts he’s brought them. It’s hard to see what he’s found this time. The vehicle they’re driving is rusted and though she can’t hear it, she imagines it must be a raspy thing. It’ll be a wonder if it reaches the Citadel with no breakdowns. 

Max doesn’t turn around. He pulls in near her truck and kills his engine. Max is slow to get out, moving a little stiffly. He’s got a beard grown and his hair’s getting shaggy, and there’s blood on him and it’s hard to tell how much is his. Must be some or he wouldn’t move like that. But his eyes are bright and when he looks at her, she can tell that he really sees her and not some other thing in her place. 

Furiosa’s thought of what to say when they crossed paths again, going over words while she drove along the northern edge of the Citadel. None of them seem terribly useful now that he’s here. She gives him a smile, and he returns it, both of them rusty at it even after all this time. 

Max introduces her to the latest treasure he’s brought the Citadel - a weaver and three small tattooed children. There’s marks on their faces and wrists where metal must have been taken out - some kind of restraints she’s willing to guess. They’re terribly shy, hiding behind the weaver and staring mostly at both Furiosa and Max. They’re from the North, from some place that was but no longer is, as happens with most unfriendly places Max visits. The women will be pleased - they’ve been trying to grow things for making clothes but none of them know how to make cloth or how to stitch anything other than flesh. She’ll be a good addition, and the children will hopefully find happiness away from whoever took them. 

Their truck won’t last much longer so Furiosa gives them the water truck to drive instead, and as much water as they can drink from it. Even Max has some and though she remembers the way he once nearly drowned himself in the spray, he is much more careful now, much more man than beast even beneath the hair. 

She could ride in the truck as well, but for all her thinking of what to say to bring Max back, it’s easiest to just slip into the passenger side of his car with him. It smells very much like Max in the car, the heavy musky smell of an unwashed man. He seems a little uneasy, or maybe nervous, glancing to her and then to the Citadel in the distance. 

“Come on,” she says softly, her eyes nudging his back to the tower when he glances at her, “You should see what you’ve helped build.” 

He grunts softly at that, but when he drives, he drives them straight and true towards the Green’s gates.


End file.
